Office of Tribal Relations

Who we are

The Office of Tribal Relations invites the University into the work of its mission by building a practice of seeing through relationships and the collaborative cultivation of tribes’ communities and cultures via dialogue. This intentional and relational work begins with Native students, extending throughout the campus community and into the many sovereign nations from which Gonzaga’s Native students originate and preserve.  

Gonzaga University has a mission and is a mission with a responsibility to extend its Jesuit pedagogy as a tool of accompaniment to help strengthen identities, expand perspectives, and build nations. Recognizing the urgency with which repairing the erasure of tribes’ cultures must be approached and the significance each Native American student holds as the literal future of their tribe, Gonzaga is committed to equipping its non-native population to be allies in accompaniment with its Native students, families, faculty, staff, alumni, and community members. 

Native students, their families and tribes will find in the Office of Tribal Relations people who understand or are willing to learn about their way of life and are dedicated to informing the campus community about those ways. The Office of Tribal Relations provides a dedicated space for Native students to build community with people who join them in advocation and camaraderie at a house whose name is translated from the Salish “sčintx^w” to mean “Indian house.”  

For non-native members of the Gonzaga community, the Office of Tribal Relations helps guide critical cultural engagement, interpretation and understanding so that the University can experience, reflect, discern, and act toward healthy and constructive relationships with Native American tribes.